Tom Holland Confirms Spider-Man Had A Cameo In ‘Iron Man 2’

Fan theories are fun. They can fill in purposeful plot holes, connect dots, or just make a bad idea easier to stomach. But most of the time, fan theories remain just that: theories. It’s only on the rare occasion that a creator elevates material to canon — aka making it real within the universe they created. But it looks like that’s exactly what Kevin Feige just did with Spider-Man.

In a recent interview with Tom Holland — the actor who plays Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — The Huffington Post chatted about his upcoming solo film Spider-Man: Homecoming and may have accidentally given away a huge spoiler. Or not. In discussing how Homecoming picks up long after Peter has settled into his radioactively-given abilities, the question of what Parker was doing before meeting the Avengers came up.

“I can confirm that [Peter Parker was in Iron Man 2] as of today. I literally had a conversation with Kevin Feige only 20 minutes ago. Maybe I’ve just done a big, old spoiler, but it’s out there now. It’s cool. I like the idea that Peter Parker has been in the universe since the beginning.”

For those that don’t recall, during the Stark Expo in Queens, New York the Iron Bots created by villain Justin Hammer are loosed on the audience. As Iron Man rushes to save the civilians, a lone child in Iron Man swag stands up to the menacing robots. That child was apparently Peter Parker.

This theory has been bopping around the internet for years, as a quick look at the comments under the above video can attest. Of course, at the time of Iron Man 2, the rights to Spider-Man were solely in Sony’s court. So it’s unlikely that kid was originally meant to be Peter Parker. That’s the glory of the retcon. Having Feige go in and fiddle with the timeline to put Peter in harm’s way, only to be saved by Iron Man, adds a layer of hero worship to Spider-Man’s story. When given the ability to help people, Peter simply followed in the footsteps of his hero, not knowing how flawed the man inside the suit is. Never meet your heroes, indeed.

They are saying that while they were making that movie, they decided that little kid was Peter Parker? Before or while they were making it? When they were just starting to build the MCU for characters they already owned? That doesn’t seem likely to me.